Death of the Ayn Rand Scholar by Gray Cavender (classic literature list txt) 📕

college—BA through the PhD—but after that, she was on her own. She had a really great condo back east that she’d bought during the recession—somebody else’s loss was her gain—which she then sold on the uptick when she accepted the position at ASU. And of course, housing prices are considerably higher in the east than in Arizona. Nelda made a hefty down payment in Arizona, but I suspect she could have swung the entire cost, had she wanted to do so. She didn’t…she of course wanted some tax relief...again, a product of her upbringing.”

“Dr. Siemens, it’s Detective Sergeant Warne again. I’d like to return to your daughter’s…dating status. Was she seeing anyone here?”

“Oh, a couple of guys, I think…but…when I visited her over there last year, I met a man Nelda was seeing…David Roberts…he was a Business prof. Nice guy. He seemed to really be into Nelda, although they broke it off late in spring semester.”

“Do you know why?”

“I’m not really sure…Nelda and I don’t discuss her love life…that was Sylvie’s province…”

He tapered-off and went quiet again, and Jillian wondered if maybe the magnitude of losing his wife and now his daughter was hitting him. She thought of those photos in Professor Siemens’ condo—the one with her family, the solo photo of her dad, the one of her winning an award—and the last image…in her English Department office.

The interview lasted only a few more minutes. Wes ended it with the usual “call if you think of anything that might help us.” And, they both thanked Dr. Siemens for his willingness to talk with them at such a difficult time. Dr. Siemens didn’t say the usual comment about wanting them to catch whoever’d killed his daughter…he was mostly quiet there at the end.

Afterward, Wes said, “Well, between what Susan Moser said and now the dad, I think we have a better sense of how the Professor could afford her condo AND her high flyer lifestyle.”

Jillian just nodded, and Wes said, “Yeah…”

They planned tomorrow’s schedule, double-checking the times of their appointments. When they finished, Wes said, “And, Jilly, please print Professor Spann’s photo and add it to the gallery for Peter Voss.”

“Already did.”

Wes and Marilyn had plans for later so there was no debriefing session at Postinos. He did drop Jillian at her condo, and she went through the usual ritual: keys; gun; tea; change clothes.

When the tea had steeped, Jillian took it into her office. First, she took Atlas Shrugged from the bookshelf, but instead of opening the novel, she placed it on her small desk. Then, she opened a file cabinet and sifted through old class notes. She had always kept her notes, not so much for posterity as because sometimes she could use something from before when writing a paper later. She found the spiral notebook with her notes from several English classes, and thumbed through the pages until she found the course where they’d read the Rand novel. Sure enough, she had an entire section of notes on the novel as well as some general discussion about Rand’s ideas.

Jillian had taken the class as a freshman so initially she didn’t remember much about it. For example, as she’d told Professor Gilroy, she didn’t remember the teacher’s name. But, here it was on the course syllabus folded into a side pouch in the spiral notebook: Michael Brown. It was all a bit vague, but she remembered that Mr. Brown was a tall, fairly thin white guy. He was a PhD student and had been maybe in his mid-to-late 20s, which had seemed a lot older than most of the students. Jillian smiled at that memory…Mr. Browne was roughly her age now. Yes, it was coming back a little…he was clean shaven, and he always wore a coat and tie…and not just a sport coat, rather, a suit. But he was a grad student, so, as she recalled, he had only two suits. Still, as best she could remember, he seemed to enjoy teaching the material, and was always respectful of the students. So, while the class was required, she’d enjoyed it. “He’s probably finished with his PhD by now,” she thought, and wondered if he was a professor somewhere.

She turned back to her notebook. According to her notes, Atlas Shrugged was about a future society that had become mired in government laws and regulations. This over-regulation was strangling business, and worse, some employees were trying to confiscate what output businesses could manage to produce. In her notes, she’d highlighted the word ‘confiscate.’ A group of business leaders essentially go on strike, led by an activist named John Galt. They relocate to some hidden place. Eventually, the strike is successful and the government collapses. In the denouement—she’d highlighted this word, too—Galt oversees the creation of a new society, one that extols the virtues of individualism and capitalism. Her notes squared with what she’d told Wes, and she was pleased that she remembered so much of the novel.

Another section of her notes was headed: Rand’s Philosophy. Here, she’d written ‘reason over faith and religion.’ There were some sentence fragments with notes about objectivism and rational individualism. In parenthesis, she’d written ‘rational & ethical egoism…the virtue of selfishness.’

A date in the side-margin indicated a different class period. This lecture began with a section on Rand’s economic ideas. Here Jillian had written ‘individual rights over collective rights.’ There was a short statement about Rand’s ideas on ‘laissez-faire capitalism.’ In parenthesis, Jillian had written ‘free market capitalism.’ Mr. Brown’s lecture that day connected Rand’s economic ideas with themes in the novel. The next paragraph in her notes—same day—caught Jillian’s attention. Mr. Brown had mentioned how Ayn Rand’s ideas fit into the contemporary economic landscape of ideas, and he specifically mentioned Milton Friedman. She smiled.

Although the spiral notebook remained open, Jillian stopped reading, looked away and just thought. Obviously, this class was long enough ago that she didn’t remember much about it. But, she thought about what Rand’s ideas meant to her. Not back then…now.

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